In expressive black-and-white lines with forays into bold Cubism, Fleener tells the story of Billie the Bee, who is too big, too fast, and has far too much personality to simply collect pollen. So, the Queen Bee (with ulterior motives) sends Billie out to patrol the woodlands and marshes of San Diego for danger. She encounters a heron on hallucinogens, dirty joke-telling turtles, and humans illegally releasing vermin that will unbalance the entire ecosystem. Mixing coming-of-age graphic fiction with facts about bees and the environment, Fleener’s Billie the Bee is both a great reintroduction to a comics talent and ripped from the headlines.

• TPB
  3/23/2021